Old Biker Held Drowning Girl Above Water For Three Hours While His Own Body Was Dying
Despite having a broken arm, the veteran biker kept the drowning adolescent above floodwater for three hours without alerting her to his impending death.
The wailing was heard by sixty-eight-year-old “Tank” Morrison on his way home from a memorial run. A school bus was washed off Highway 9, trapping the children inside as the water level rose.
This leather-clad veteran jumped right into the swirling brown water while other vehicles continued to drive through the downpour.
Before the water carried the bus, he rescued seven children out, but Emma, 14, became entangled in the debris and was dragged downstream, where Tank saw her clinging to a cracking tree branch.
“Avoid letting go!” In order to get to her, he had roared above the storm and battled the water. With his motorcycle boots kicking against the stream, he utilised his body as a raft and grabbed her when the branch broke.Sales of used motorcycles
He kept her afloat for three hours as she clung to his shoulders, knowing that his strength was the only thing keeping her alive.
Tank, however, was concealing something from the frightened girl on his back: he was bleeding heavily from a wound in his side, and his left arm was shattered from colliding with submerged debris.
He kept chatting to her to keep her calm, telling her about his granddaughter, making her pledge to try out for the school softball team, anything to keep her going even though every minute of holding her up was excruciating.
Tank had lost all of his strength when rescue boats eventually discovered them. He disappeared beneath the surface as soon as Emma was hauled to safety. The following events would garner national attention, although not for the anticipated cause.….
Tank’s unconscious body was retrieved from the water by the rescue crew. No heartbeat. Not breathing. While Emma yelled his name, the EMT, a young man named Rodriguez, worked on him for fifteen minutes.
At last, Rodriguez whispered, “He’s gone.” “I’m going to call it. 3 PM.
“No!” Emma pushed herself over Tank’s still body after escaping the blanket that had been wrapped around her. “You cannot pass away! You said you would teach me how to ride! You said you would!
Before that day, she had never met him. However, for three hours in hell, he had taken on the roles of guardian, saviour, and the voice that kept her going.
Rodriguez was shoved aside by the elder man who was the captain of the rescue boat. “You don’t blame a brother for it.” He indicated Tank’s vest, which was visible beneath the rescue blanket. “MC Iron Horsemen.” From the patches, original member. These men never give up.
Desperate, he began compressions once more. Word had spread that one of their own boats was down, and other boats had arrived. On the site, motorcycles that had been assisting with rescue operations gathered.
“Tank, hurry up!” someone yelled. “Here are your brothers!”
Emma said prayers she vaguely recalled from Sunday school while holding his icy hand. The rain continued to fall. The river continued to rise. Tank remained lifeless as well.
Four minutes. Five, six.
Emma then sensed the smallest squeeze of her hand.
“He gave a squeeze! He gave my hand a squeeze!
Tank’s lungs burst into water. Choking, coughing, yet still alive. Breathing, barely alive.
“The kid okay?” was the first thing he murmured after focussing his gaze.
Emma started crying. “I’m all right. I was saved by you. I was saved by you.
“Well done.” He shut his eyes once more. “Tell my wife that I fulfilled my promise.”
Emma would eventually figure out what the rescue crew didn’t grasp. Thirty years ago, Tank’s own daughter drowned in a flood. He couldn’t get to her in time because he was stopped in traffic. On the burial of their daughter, he had vowed to his wife that, if at all possible, he would never allow another child to perish in water.
Throughout the day, he had fulfilled that pledge seven times.
The depth of Tank’s injuries was revealed at the hospital. severe hypothermia, a punctured lung, four broken ribs, a broken arm, and a concussion. For the whole three hours that he held Emma up, he had been dying.
The doctor said to Emma’s parents, “I don’t understand how he stayed conscious.” He should have fainted from the agony alone. Furthermore, it is impossible to keep someone above water with severe injuries.
“He did it,” Emma firmly stated. “He accomplished the unthinkable.”
The narrative went viral. Tank holding Emma above the river, his grey beard dripping in the water, her arms around his neck—that picture, taken from a TV chopper, became legendary. The headline, “Biker Becomes Guardian Angel in Flood,” said it all.
What transpired after, however, was the true tale.
Tank was thanked by Emma’s parents at the hospital. Standing awkwardly in the doorway was her father, a bank executive who had always crossed the street when he saw bikers.Maps for motorbike travelling
“Our daughter was saved by you,” he remarked sternly. “You are the one we owe everything to.”
Tank simply nodded when there were tubes everywhere and bandages covering half of his body. “Anybody could have done that.”
Emma’s mother snapped, “No.” “They wouldn’t. Three automobiles sped past the bus as we passed. No one else halted. Just you.
Despite the nurses’ objections, Emma pushed past her parents and perched on Tank’s bed. “Why?” she enquired. “Why did you put everything on the line for strangers?”
Tank stared at her for a while. With her entire life ahead of her, this fourteen-year-old nearly lost everything to apathy and muddy water.
“Because we do that,” he finally stated. I mean, bikers. We halt. We assist. People are never abandoned by us.
“Even if you die from it?”
“Especially at that time.”
The father of Emma cleared his throat. Are we able to do anything? Do you need anything?
Tank gave a feeble smile. Yes, in fact. Emma mentioned that she wanted to learn how to ride.
Her dad’s face became white. “Definitely not. Motorcycles are—
“The reason I’m still here,” Emma cut in. Tank wouldn’t have heard us yelling if he hadn’t been riding his bike or if he had been in a car with the windows open and music blasting. He wouldn’t have given up.
There was silence in the room.
Her mother whispered, “She’s got a point.”
Tank honoured his word when he was sufficiently recovered, which was two months later. In a parking lot, Emma’s parents anxiously watched Tank teach her the fundamentals of riding a little Honda during her first motorbike lesson.Sales of used motorcycles
“It’s good to be afraid,” he said. It keeps you alert. However, panic kills. You remained calm when the water got to you. That’s why you made it through.
She acknowledged, “I panicked.”
“No. You waited. You had faith in me. There is courage there, not panic.
Every week, the lessons went on. As they observed Tank’s gentle instruction and his emphasis on responsibility, safety, and respect, Emma’s parents began to calm down. They began to view motorcycles as tools that, in the proper hands, might represent freedom, community, and even rescue rather than as killing machines.
Tank’s other saved children began to appear as well. The Iron Horsemen MC accepted these kids and taught them about honour, service, and standing up for others in addition to motorcycles. Their parents were originally appalled that their kids wanted to be part of a “biker gang.”Sales of used motorcycles
To one anxious mother, Tank calmly clarified, “We’re not a gang.” “We are a fraternity. We are teachers, mechanics, EMTs, firefighters, and veterans. We simply happen to be motorbike riders.Maps for motorbike travellingSales of used motorcycles
The woman gazed at the clubhouse walls, which were covered in pictures from toy drives, charity rides, and concerts for injured veterans. “I was unaware,” she acknowledged. “I apologise.”
“The majority of people don’t,” Tank stated. “They assume after seeing the leather.”
The town conducted a ceremony a year after the disaster. One elderly motorcyclist stopped when no one else would, and seven children stood on stage, alive. Emma was their spokesperson.
“I was saved by Tank Morrison for four minutes,” she said into the microphone. He fractured bones while supporting me. In order for me to breathe, he bled into flood water. He helped my parents realise that heroes don’t necessarily drive fancy automobiles or wear uniforms. Heroes occasionally have grey beards, tattoos, leather vests, and Harleys.Sales of used motorcycles
She turned to face Tank, who was seated in the front row wearing his Iron Horsemen vest. His wife was sitting next to him, and she was finally at peace with the murder of their daughter because her husband had saved seven others.
Emma went on, “You showed me that true strength isn’t about being tough.” It all comes down to being prepared to sacrifice yourself in order to save another person. Since that day, every biker I’ve met has demonstrated to me that, if protecting the innocent requires it, your group does more than just ride together—it dies together.
The audience exploded in cheers. Tank, who detested attention, attempted to get up and walk away, but the other children approached him. The reason seven adolescents wearing “Tank’s Survivors” t-shirts are still alive is because one man lived by the maxim “you stop, you help, you never leave anyone behind.”Sales of used motorcycles
The flood shot was supplanted as the iconic image from that occasion, which showed Tank surrounded by the children he had saved, all of whom were now sporting motorbike jackets that their parents had purchased for them. It demonstrated a force greater than rescue. It displayed change. Recognising. constructing a bridge between two realms that had previously been suspicious of one another.
Emma is now seventeen and has a driver’s license. She specialises in flood response and volunteers with water rescue teams. Her parents purchased her a Harley, something they never would have thought possible before Tank.
She still goes to see him on Sundays. They travel together as teacher and pupil, rescuer and survivor. Occasionally, they go by the location where the bus sank, which is now commemorated by a memorial plaque.Sales of used motorcycles
She paused before the memorial and asked him once, “Any regrets?”
“Just one,” Tank acknowledged. One child at a time was all I could hold. Faster if I had been stronger.
Emma reminded him that he had saved seven lives. and made hundreds more changes. Your legacy is every parent who now views motorcyclists differently, every child who understands that assistance can come from unexpected sources, and every individual who chooses to stop rather than drive by.
Tank nodded as he glanced at the memorial and then at the young woman next to him, who had transformed from a scared fourteen-year-old into a self-assured rider and volunteer for rescue.
He questioned, “Is your mum still anxious when you ride?”Maps for motorbike travelling
Emma chuckled. Terrified. But at least I learnt from the greatest if I’m going to ride, she says. by someone who is aware that enormous power carries enormous responsibility.
Spider-Man, Tank said.
“That is for bikers,” Emma clarified. “The ones worth knowing, at least.”
Two generations united by water and rescue, by a vow honoured under the most dire circumstances, they rode home as the sun sank. When it rained, Tank’s fractured bones hurt, but they had healed. A reminder of the cost of honouring commitments and upholding the moral precept that you must stop and assist even if it means your death.
In particular, if it kills you.Maps for motorbike travelling
That’s what distinguishes the true riders from the imposters, the brotherhood from the pretenders, and the people who don’t live up to the code from those who do.
Tank Morrison saved a stranger’s child in a flood and perished for four minutes.
However, he lived longer in those four minutes than most people do in a lifetime.
What about Emma? She ensured that everyone was aware of it. made sure everyone knew that the frightful old biker who jumped straight into death was the type of man that everyone should strive to be.
